Featured Physician: Dr. Jake Wardwell, D.O.

Welcome back to our Featured Physician series! We’re excited to showcase our newest Regeneris Physician Affiliates and tell you about their practices, why they became interested in regenerative medicine, and technologies they’re excited about.

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Jake Wardwell, D.O., an Integrative Medicine Specialist from San Francisco, California.

1. Can you tell us details about you/your practice?

I'm an osteopath board certified in Integrative Family Medicine and Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine and Certified in Musculoskeletal Ultrasound ( ARDMS RMSK) and Interventional Regenerative Orthopedic Medicine (IROM-C). I combine the best of conventional medicine with functional medicine to optimize health and wellness by looking deeper at hormone, nutritional and digestive health. As an Osteopath trained in musculoskeletal ultrasound, I am able to palpate and visulalize soft tissue strain patterns in the body to pick up on the underlying causes of musculoskeletal disorders. Lastly, Interventional Regenerative Orthopedic Medicine is about using regenerative agents such as Platelet Rich Plasma, Amniotic Membrane and Adipose derived Stromal Vascular Fraction to regenerate injured areas in the body. I combine these different aspects of medicine to both address the system in which illness and injury happens as well as the symptoms that manifest from this system.

2. Why did you get involved in regenerative medicine?

My path evovled from studying Yoga Therapy and Eastern Philosophy as a premed to studying Acupuncture and Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine in Medical school. Concurrently in medical school, I trained with Integrative Medicine phsyicians and took extra courses and continuing medical education conferences throughout residency to learn more about functional medicine. During residency, I started working with doctors who were doing prolotherapy based on palpation, which helped me to learn all of the areas to treat and look at once I finally picked up ultrasound. Since finishing residency, I’ve been using ultrasound to diagnose and guide regenerative injections and have developed my own protocols for injecting and rehabilitating areas based on principles from Osteopathic Medicine, Acupuncture and Yoga Therapy.

3. What are some of the most exciting technologies within this field?

Stromal Vascular Fraction is the most exciting new technology in the field of regenerative medicine. I am seeing a more robust healing response in areas that I used to treat with Platelet Rich Plasma and am now able to treat certain injuries or illnesses that PRP was not effective enough to treat.

4. What is a fun fact you'd like to share?

I enjoy playing Jazz and Blues Piano nightly and I have an extensive Soul and Jazz Vinyl record collection that helps to inspire my own musical compositions. This creative outlet helps me to both process my days experience and inspire new creative ideas. A lot of what I do relies on intuition and feel and playing improvisational music helps to cultivate this skill set in a way that simply practicing medicine, maintaining healthy levels of physical activity and a healthy diet cannot.

Learn more and schedule an appointment with Dr. Wardwell by visiting https://sfiirm.com